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Friday, February 11, 2011

An ATF agent's indictment. "ATF DIDN'T make every effort to 'interdict' these guns or they WOULD HAVE been interdicted."

On CleanUpATF.org yesterday, experienced ATF street agent Vince Cefalu issued a damning indictment of his own agency in the Project Gunwalker and other scandals.

We (the field) have formally, officially and sometimes unofficially attempted to encourage Director Melson, DD Hoover and their predecessors to restore the integrity of the agency. We have asked them to demand leadership from our executives, and to control and reign in Chief Counsels Office and corrupt and unethical practices. So here we are. Mr. Melson can no longer pretend to be in charge or have ANY say so in our Agency's future. Mr. Traver sits silent as if he has NO IDEA any of this is going on. So what happens? EXACTLY what is supposed to happen, Congressional oversight.

1. Fact: Mr. Melson chose not or was told not to respond to a U.S. Senator with DIRECT impact on our agency's future.

2. Fact: The allegation Sen. Grassley references is not false and Mr. Melson and Newell have publicly admitted it in their press conference. We did know, we didn't "interdict" or prevent this from happening. We NEVER let guns walk. That has been our mantra since we became a Bureau.

3. Fact: ATF DIDN'T make every effort to "interdict" these guns or they WOULD HAVE been interdicted. We have been interdicting guns for 40 years. We know what that is Mr. Melson. PS, we don't withhold information regarding potential guns hitting the streets from our sister agencies. Not even if they are MEXICAN. Those guys are going toe to toe with the worst we've ever seen and you don't TRUST them? Stop the "legal word games". The nature of a straw purchase makes it inherently illegal if we have information regarding the purchaser (which we did). Stop acting or attempting to convince Congress or the public that because at face value a person is not prohibited that we CANT do anything because this particular gun is not contraband. There are a bunch of successful trafficking groups in Atlanta and New York that DO interdict guns everyday. Its called doing our job.

4. Fact: No Project Gunrunner doesn't focus on straw purchasers, THAT IS THE POINT.

5. Fact: We will not dismantle entire organization without the Mexican LE help, but they can hardly help with Newell and Gillette hoarding their intel EVEN from our own people. The grandstanding needs to stop.

6. Fact: ATF and Mr. Melson have totally retaliated against ANY agent who demands leadership, NOT JUST IN THIS MATTER. Do the math. Release the DSZ disbursements. Exposes the smoke and mirror bad faith mediations and the wasted MILLIONS of dollars of DOJ money spent defending your indefensible abuses against SA Jay Dobyns and others.

7. Fact: Senior managers scoff at your training, have been found to have violated serious mandates regarding whistleblower reprisals and EEOC retaliations and you DO CLEARLY NOT understand the importance of accountability.

9. Fact: the standing policy about not releasing information apparently did not apply when Congresswoman Giffords was shot. That's right, there was no evidence of governments malfeasence or misconduct in that situation.

10. Fact: you do not look forward to briefing the Senator or you would have. That would first require that you become aware of the case and be granted access to our case files.

11. Fact: the fast tracking of Newell to Mexico before the Senator can provide the necessary oversight and perhaps make corrections to at best a flawed management practice and at worse GROSS negligence is a testament to exactly what we have collectively said about the Agency's institutional arrogance.

The agents of ATF do have integrity. They do love this agency. And we WILL cooperate with ANY member of U.S. the Congress who is in the performance of their lawful and elected duties.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"She's gonna 'splode"!!!

Is the boiler room about ready to go? As more and more folks come forward, the inertia will build to the point that Congress simply can't ignore it and will make it a priority. Critical mass may be around the corner.

Thank you Mike and David for breaking this and staying on it. You guys deserve a Medal of Freedom for your work. If the ATF gets straightened out or disappears(!), can you imagine the number of lives saved, both physical and financial?

Before the ATF hatchetmen attack Agent Cefalu understand that he worked the most dangerous and violent assignments ATF offered for over 20 years. ATF promoted his work as a demonstration of the bureau's stance against violent crime until he blew the whistle on executive mismangement. Only then did they attempt to claim that he was retroactively incompetent. Don't be fooled by defensive spin of ATF's managers. This guy is the real deal.

Sorry, folks, but I do not believe anything of consequence will come of Sen. Grassley's activities. What sort of cards does he really hold? What can he REALLY do? What sort of penalties can he exact if the DOJ and BATFE continue to ignore him?

The executive branch has the bit between its teeth. Nothing can stop it. The Executive branch has already told both the Legislature and Judiciary to "Piss up a rope!". The executive branch is the part of government tasked with enforcing the law of the land. Who enforces the law on the enforcers? Who polices the police?

Don't reckon it's gonna be long now. They are just about full enough of themselves. When they are truly full of themselves they will do something monumentally stupid. That will be the beginning of the world as we know it.

SHIT!!!!!

Guess I better get proficient on that shiny (not really) new FNAR I picked up today. Looks like Im gonna need to be soon.

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Everyone should grow up with simulated equipment from a heavy weapons platoon. It gives you a more well rounded education and an appreciation for the finer things in life. -- Sergeant Matthew Vanderboegh, United States Army.

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I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

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From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

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The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

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"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

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"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.